Tag Archives: Greek Parliament

Here’s a short documentary on the social repercussions of the Greek crisis and an attempt to understand the rise of violence, but also of solidarity in Greece. It’s made by Ross Domoney, a colleague and friend from the UK who did not parachute himself to Greece for a couple of days but spent several months in Athens.

Amidst continuing incidents of racist violence in Greece and in the absence of photographic documentation of it, there is a higher need for illustrating relative articles in different ways. These recent nazi-related illustrations by Manos Symeonakis are a great example.

Trivia: Did you know that Ancient Greek architectural, clothing and coin designs are replete with single or interlinking swastika motifs? It was then called Gammadion, i.e. a symbol made of the Greek letter Gamma (Γ). See here for a start.

Here’s one of the first speeches by Golden Dawn at the newly formed Greek Parliament. The speaker is the party’s spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris. It’s very sad to see what the political discourse in this country has ended up to.

I just read an interesting opinion poll that tells some of the developments in post-election Greece. It’s main element is that SYRIZA’s popularity has grown in less than a week since the elections. The poll was carried out by MARC and I found it here. So here are the numbers accompanied by some comments of mine.

SYRIZA’s leader, Alexis Tsipras.

SYRIZA’s popularity, according to the poll, is now standing as high as 23,8%, the highest the party has enjoyed since its birth. In the recent elections, SYRIZA scored 16,78% of the votes. The rise in popularity can be attributed to the fact that an alternative government (other than PASOK and New Democracy) seemed possible after Sunday’s results. In addition it’s possible that the continuation of the small-party political games that PASOK and New Democracy have been playing for the past two decades have radicalized people a bit more. If SYRIZA had a more clear and realistic plan to get out of the crisis then this rise would definitely have been bigger.

According to MARC’s poll, New Democracy comes second in preference with 17,4% (they won the elections with 18,85%) and PASOK is down to 10,8% (from a mediocre 13,18% in the elections). Independent Greeks gather 8,7%, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) 6%, Golden Dawn 4,9% and the Democratic Left has 4,2%.

LAOS, the Green Party, Creation Again, Democratic Alliance and Action Party are all below the 3% threshold needed to enter the Greek Parliament.

An interesting aspect of this poll is this rare question that was added to the questionnaire: If you knew the result in advance, which party would you vote for?

Now, in a linear time world, it might look a bit absurd to ask this question unless voters have access to the technology of time travel. However, the results support my comment a couple of paragraphs above which is that many Greeks have never until now believed that a leftist government could be possible, especially through elections. Almost two generations grew up watching PASOK and New Democracy rotating in power.

Hence, 23,2% of those asked replied that they would vote for SYRIZA. The people who got afraid of SYRIZA’s rise in the elections (and of the possibility of a leftist government) were much less than what I would personally expect. This can be seen in the 19,6% of the interviewees who answered that, if they knew the result of the elections, they would vote for New Democracy (i.e. only 0,75% more than what New Democracy actually received in Sunday’s ballot boxes). Funnily, or tragically for some, PASOK would be voted only by 12,5% (as if the PASOK voters themselves wished a greater defeat of their party which got 13,18% in the recent elections). Another interesting fact is that some people did indeed get scared of the rise of extreme rightist Golden Dawn, especially after this week’s publicity which included a Golden Dawn press conference where one of their members asked journalists to stand up when their leader would appear in the press room. Speaking of it, here’s the video from the press conference, including the leader’s fiery speech, all with english subtitles:

So, the people who would vote for Golden Dawn, If they knew the elections’ result in advance, were down to 5,9% (from 6,97% that they got in the elections).

There were a few more questions but they are a bit dull and I can’t be bothered. I’ll just go and take a nap now.

An interesting moment from yesterday’s session at the Greek Parliament. George Mavrikos, an MP with the Greek Communist Party (KKE), throws the draft Memorandum (No2) towards Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos after a heated debate.

George Mavrikos returns the draft Memorandum No2 to Evangelos Venizelos

Venizelos stood up and started shouted a prophecy. “The image of Mr. Mavrikos doing this act will be shown by the international media around the world. He is humiliating the country. He is exposing the country to risk. You won’t drive the country into a state of soviet-style socialism, twenty years later “.

It seems that the investigation on the alteration of Greek Statistics (in 2010) has bumped into some sort of political involvement. The case began last September after the complaint of Zoe Georganta, a professor of Econometry at the University of Macedonia (Thessaloniki) & a member of ELSTAT (the Greek Statistical Authority), who said that the 2009 deficit was artificially augmented. She underlined that in November 2010 ELSTAT accepted pressures from Eurostat and produced a higher number for the country’s 2009 deficit, at 15,4% instead of 12-13% which was the real number. The goal was to make it politically more feasible to pass further economic reforms (cuts in salaries & pensions as well as taxes).

Financial prosecutor Grigoris Peponis

Financial prosecutor Grigoris Peponis has collected testimonies from 17 people who were involved in the case. His conclusion was included in the letter accompanying the case file on its way to Greece’s Supreme Court (Areios Pagos, the descendant of ancient Areopagus). In this letter Peponis says that there is evidence concerning criminal offences (under the Law on Ministerial Responsibility) by members of the the Greek government. He also wrote that in the testimonies there is explicit reference to an augmentation and an arbitrary determination of the 2009 public debt. The blame for this, according to the testimonies submitted to Mr. Peponis, is targeting the then Prime Minister, members of his government and the respective Finance Ministers.

After the Supreme Court, the case file will be transferred to the Greek Parliament which will decide on possible political responsibilities. In other words, this could be the beginning of a Special Investigative Committee and, if responsibilities are found, a Special Court for George Papandreou and his administration.

The names of those who testified were also made publicly available. Mr. Peponis had also invited current ELSTAT chairman, Andreas Georgiou, to testify but the latter did not provide a sworn testimony. In addition, George Papaconstantinou, Finance Minister during the examined period, rejected any claims against himself. In a public statement, he concluded that “there is an attempt to penalize the truth about the grave situation Greece was in 2009“. Mr Papaconstantinou is now Greece’s Minister for the Environment.